Forum > Gaming Discussion > Remembering renting video games from rental stores!
Remembering renting video games from rental stores!
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Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:08:52
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Ravenprose said:
I knew a guy once who created accounts at every store that rented games, and he would just keep them. All his games had rental store stickers.


He asked me once if he could borrow a few of my games. I told him hell no.

Oh hell no! LOL

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Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:19:21

I don't have many recollections of renting games.  I know we used to when I was a young kid.  I have vague memories of renting Metroid on the NES and not having a clue what I was supposed to do.  When I was older I preferred to own games, only renting something very occasionally.  Then a year or 10-15 ago renting games was outlawed here, for reasons I still don't understand.  Renting movies was still allowed, but I think the last place where you could physically rent movies went out of business 5 yeas ago.

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Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:44:27
We don't have any physical rental stores in my area now, just Redbox kiosks everywhere. They had a few games for rent but I haven't used Redbox in several years.

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Fri, 28 Jan 2022 20:43:31
Oh yeah, the game rental market is gone here. Even Redbox stopped doing it 3 years ago or so. I just remembered they started selling games for a minute and I saw Kingdom hearts 3 for $20, way before it was that cheap at GameStop. When I went back to get it a few days later all of the games were gone.

Gamefly is still a thing I think, but I don't know anyone who's used that in ages.
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Sun, 30 Jan 2022 15:39:49

Yeah, I don’t think we have any places to rent games here either.

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Mon, 31 Jan 2022 20:23:43
One time in around 2000 or 2001 I rented Tony Hawk Pro Skater on the Dreamcast. The game didn't work until my dad cleaned the disc.

It was covered in chocolate from the previous person that rented it.

That is what led to me buying only new games.

Even if they tried to sell me the cheaper used game I would still rather buy it new.

SUPER MARIO MAKER LEVELS:

  • SMB Mix-Up! (1AB2-0000-0047-5A7D)
  • Storm the Castle (77BD-0000-00E0-A9C0)

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Mon, 31 Jan 2022 21:22:57
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One other kind of funny rental story. When I was 11 or 12, the red-headed girl next door and I were gamer buddies, and on occasion we would get our parents to take us to a video store so that we can each run a game. On one such trip I found a copy of Fester's quest which was hard as nails, but a bizarrely fun concept all the same. She on the other hand picked up Jaws.

Now I tried to tell her over and over that Jaws it was a terrible game. I watched another friend play it before, and it really had no reason to exist. But she insisted that it would be great and she would love it.

Couple hours later we're at home, and she gives me a call. "Hey would you like to switch games?" Like any other woman, she refused to admit she was wrong and insisted that Jaws was in fact excellent and that I really needed to try it out. I ultimately gave in and switched with her, because even at a young age I was always a sucker for redheads and would do whatever they wanted.

She actually tried to do that one other time too, when she picked up that same copy of Captain Comic then I discussed earlier. However, that game was so terrible even a surge of hormones couldn't get me to trade her that time.
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Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:10:17
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So many games that I would rent would have the instruction manual smelling like hash oil and have some residue on them. LOL

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Tue, 01 Feb 2022 00:44:41
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Archangel3371 said:

So many games that I would rent would have the instruction manual smelling like hash oil and have some residue on them. LOL

Hash oil? What's that? Nyaa

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Tue, 01 Feb 2022 01:00:51
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Ravenprose said:
Archangel3371 said:

So many games that I would rent would have the instruction manual smelling like hash oil and have some residue on them. LOL

Hash oil? What's that? Nyaa

I’m not entirely sure. I’m just going off of what I’ve been told by other people. Nyaa

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Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:57:49
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The grease from hash browns. Gamers are a filthy bunch.

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Fri, 04 Feb 2022 19:19:32
robio said:
One other kind of funny rental story. When I was 11 or 12, the red-headed girl next door and I were gamer buddies, and on occasion we would get our parents to take us to a video store so that we can each run a game. On one such trip I found a copy of Fester's quest which was hard as nails, but a bizarrely fun concept all the same. She on the other hand picked up Jaws.


Now I tried to tell her over and over that Jaws it was a terrible game. I watched another friend play it before, and it really had no reason to exist. But she insisted that it would be great and she would love it.


Couple hours later we're at home, and she gives me a call. "Hey would you like to switch games?" Like any other woman, she refused to admit she was wrong and insisted that Jaws was in fact excellent and that I really needed to try it out. I ultimately gave in and switched with her, because even at a young age I was always a sucker for redheads and would do whatever they wanted.


She actually tried to do that one other time too, when she picked up that same copy of Captain Comic then I discussed earlier. However, that game was so terrible even a surge of hormones couldn't get me to trade her that time.

Lol women.

so those are two rentals I did, Fester's Quest I loved and rented multiple times. Jaws though, holy shit, one of the worst.

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Fri, 25 Mar 2022 23:46:56

The other week I had a dream about Blockbuster. What struck me the most is... they had carpets in them. What other store do you know that have ever had carpets? How the hell did they keep the carpets clean in the deep of Canadian winter?

I liked the carpets. It really dampened the sound and gave those stores a library feel. More stores should bring back carpet.

I was in my hometown this weekend and the old Blockbuster is now a payday loan place. Man, what a waste.

Edited: Fri, 25 Mar 2022 23:48:26

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Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:07:29
The Blockbuster near me was one of the last to close in Florida. I think it managed to survive until the bitter end because it has just enough traffic from town, and it was on the edge of a rural area where high-speed internet was still hard to come by.

Once it did close the owners of the plaza it was in divided the space into two. One side became a Jimmy John's sandwich shop, while the other became a boutique pet supply store. High-end food and toys stuff like that. How that place ever stayed in business I'll never know, but it managed to survive about 6 years before it finally closed. And that's amazing because in the entire time it was there I don't think I ever saw a customer.
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Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:23:14
There was always something uniquely special about seeing if the game you wanted was available, and how the biggest games always had so many copies compared to the few for others. While I'm sure I did, I don't remember any other game than Goldeneye that I rented more than once.

The worst, one of the first games I ever remember renting was from a place I think was called Video411. To give you a sense of the era, for some reason seeing Look Who's Talking Too on the rental shelves sticks in my mind. I rented the Ghostbusters game for NES. That game was so baffling to me at like age 5. A major part of gameplay has the Ghostbusters logo moving around a city grid while ghosts float around. I had no idea what you were supposed to do. I think I then rented Dick Tracy instead.

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Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:39:53
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The first time I tried to rent Goldeneye, I put in the cartridge only to discover that I had Bomberman 64 instead. The previous renter took off the Goldeneye  label and duct taped it to the Bomberman cartridge. That only made me want to play it even more.

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Wed, 30 Mar 2022 19:30:25
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travo said:

The first time I tried to rent Goldeneye, I put in the cartridge only to discover that I had Bomberman 64 instead. The previous renter took off the Goldeneye  label and duct taped it to the Bomberman cartridge. That only made me want to play it even more.

That is a Greek tragedy

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Thu, 31 Mar 2022 14:37:17
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Yodariquo said:
There was always something uniquely special about seeing if the game you wanted was available, and how the biggest games always had so many copies compared to the few for others. While I'm sure I did, I don't remember any other game than Goldeneye that I rented more than once.


The worst, one of the first games I ever remember renting was from a place I think was called Video411. To give you a sense of the era, for some reason seeing Look Who's Talking Too on the rental shelves sticks in my mind. I rented the Ghostbusters game for NES. That game was so baffling to me at like age 5. A major part of gameplay has the Ghostbusters logo moving around a city grid while ghosts float around. I had no idea what you were supposed to do. I think I then rented Dick Tracy instead.

I was such a massive Ghostbusters fan that I would rent that game multiple times hoping that one time the game wouldn't suck. It always sucked.

Thank god for Ghostbusters 2 which was better.

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Sat, 09 Apr 2022 04:47:33
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By the time I got back into console gaming, at the end of the SNES and beginning of the N64 era I was in my 20's and have enough money to buy games.  I did trying renting from time to time, but it was very rare.  By only positive renting experiecen was from VideoTron which was a video store in Costa Mesa that was run by a vietnamese family.  It had a phenomenal selection of classic and arthouse movies.  And the porn parrot, which I've talked about before.

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Mon, 26 Sep 2022 13:11:08
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Oh, I remember another good rental story, and a much more recent one at that.

Earlier I mentioned one of the last Blockbusters in the state was just down the street from me, and in their last few years they had a game rental program. Basically you pay $20 or something like that and you get unlimited rentals all month long. This ended up working out perfectly for me.

I was working from home at the time (2008 to 2012), and every Tuesday morning I could pop over to Blockbuster right when they opened and look at all the newly released games and select anything I wanted to play long before anyone else could get there. I remember in particular grabbing LA noire this way.

I'm sure this was infuriating to other local residents who were always wondering how the hell the biggest new releases were snatched up as quickly as they were. Oh well, I dealt with crap like that in my life at times too, so it's only fair I get to be on the good end of it.
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